1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a manipulator which is capable of handling a plate material which is subjected to a bending process in a bending machine such as a press break and the like, and a robotic device equipped with this manipulator, and, in particular, to a manipulator for a plate processing machine wherein a jaw can be exchanged according to the shape of plate being handled, and a robotic device equipped with this manipulator.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, a manipulator has been developed for automatically handling the workpiece in a plate bending machine such as a press break, where a plate bending operation is performed.
A conventional manipulator is usually set up in a prescribed position in front of the bending process machine. In this type of manipulator the arm is provided on a supporting column in a manner to allow both free vertical and rotary movement, and also to provide free expansion, contraction, and rotation. A plate clamping device is provided on the end of the arm for freely grasping a workpiece.
In a conventional manipulator with the abovementioned configuration, for the plate clamping device to have a wide range of movement, the arm must be long, and the overall configuration results in a large manipulator, which is a drawback. In addition, the positioning of a plate in the plate bending device of the plate bending process machine is performed entirely by the manipulator. It is therefore necessary to construct a high-precision manipulator to improve the precision of the positioning of the plate. This leads to the problem of excessively high production costs.
In order to eliminate these problem, the inventor of the present invention has developed a highly servicable manipulator for handling plate material in a plate bending machine similar to a press break, which is described in Japanese Patent Application SHO-62-313760.
However, even in this manipulator, when performing a process such as bending and the like, when the area of the point where the plate can be clamped is small the jaw of the plate clamping device must be changed in a manual operation conforming to the state of the clamping, which is a drawback. In addition, it is difficult to automate this operation, which makes it inconvenient.